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RESPIRATORY THERAPY :: Respiratory Therapy Program Mission, Goals, and Philosophy

MISSION STATEMENT

The faculty of the Victor Valley College Respiratory Therapy Program believes in the promotion and support of excellence for the profession of Respiratory Therapy through education and public service. The mission of the Program is intended to:

 

  1. Support of the Mission Statement of Victor Valley Community College.
  2. Assist the student to succeed and develop professionally through vocational instruction and training, thus enabling the student to successfully pass both the State Licensure examination and the NBRC Registry examination.
  3. Support the medical community's employment needs for qualified respiratory care practitioners.
  4. Encourage continuing professional and personal development within the community through volunteerism & community service.

 

PROGRAM GOALS AS PROGRAM LEARNING OUTCOMES

  1. Demonstrate the ability to comprehend, apply, and evaluate clinical information relative to the role as a Registered Respiratory Therapist (Cognitive Domain)
  2. Demonstrate the technical proficiency in all skills necessary to fulfill the role of Registered Respiratory Therapist (Psychomotor Domain).
  3. Demonstrate behaviors consistent with professionalism and meet employer expectations for the role of Registered Respiratory Therapist (Affective Domain).

 

PROGRAM PHILOSOPHY

The respiratory care practitioner specializes in planning, providing, directing, and evaluating cardiopulmonary care for individuals or groups in a variety of settings. Through assessment, treatment, life support applications, and education, the respiratory therapist is committed to the prevention of cardiopulmonary illness and promotion of health.

The Associate Degree Respiratory Therapy Program provides a foundation for continuing personal and professional development in the study of the arts, sciences, and humanities. The Program is designed to produce competent, self-directed respiratory therapists who can assume leadership roles in the profession and the healthcare setting.

The Faculty believes that learning is a lifelong process that is independent and self-initiated. The teaching-learning process includes teacher-student interaction in setting goals, selecting and evaluating learning experiences, and in assessing instructional methods and student progress. Learning experiences are planned to achieve application, sequence and continuity of knowledge, skills and attitudes defined by the program’s educational objectives.

 

PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION: A dynamic relationship between student, faculty and resources.

The VVC Respiratory Therapy Program is conducted using the philosophy of education as based on two primary rationales:

 

  1. The understanding that teaching is a cooperative art
  2. The recognition that genuine learning is a development of the mind, not a formation of memories, and as an acquisition of knowledge and understanding, not an adoption of indoctrinated opinions.

 

A cooperative art is one in which human productive activity is not only the principal, but also the sole efficient cause of results achieved.  For example, Socrates compared his own style of teaching with the work of the midwife.  He explained that it is the mother, not the midwife, who goes through the pains of childbirth to deliver the child. The midwife merely cooperates with the process, helping the mother in her efforts, and making childbirth a little easier and a little more hygienic.

 

Teachers, like midwives, are always dispensable. Children can be born without midwives. Knowledge and understanding can be acquired without teachers, through the purely natural operations of the human mind. It is important for teachers to realize that the principal cause of the learning that occurs in a student is the activity of the student's own mind.  The teacher plays the role of a source, a guide, and encouragement.

Another important insight is that all learning is by discovery, either by discovery alone or via discovery aided by instruction, but never by instruction alone. It may be either a) unaided discovery, when the activity of the learner's mind is the principal, but also the sole cause of learning, or b) aided discovery, when the activity of the learner's mind is the principal, but not the sole cause of learning.

When instruction is not accompanied by discovery, when instruction makes impressions on the memory with no act of understanding by the mind, then it is not genuine teaching, but mere indoctrination. Genuine teaching, in sharp distinction from indoctrination, always consists in activities on the part of teachers that cooperate with activities performed by the minds of students engaged in discovery. The understanding of ideas once acquired, has maximum durability. What is understood cannot be forgotten because it is a habit of the intellect, not something remembered.

 

DEVELOPMENT OF PROFESSIONALISM

In accordance with the goals and standards of the Victor Valley College Respiratory Therapy Program, it is our purpose to foster the development of professional health care providers. The following are a few important components of professionalism that all students and faculty are expected to adhere to and demonstrate:

Altruism: The principle or practice of unselfish concern for or devotion to the welfare of others. The purpose of this program is to graduate students into the field of health care who possess a primary concern for their patients, fellow colleagues, and the community as a whole.

Skills and knowledge: The purpose of this program is to graduate students into the field of health care who possess the knowledge and skills to be effective patient advocates. Dr. Sepuya, a previous program medical director, directly stated in an advisory meeting that each patient is the responsibility of every health care provider working with that patient. Patient care is a team effort and is not the sole responsibility of the physician. The physician relies heavily on the health care providers that are at the bedside with the patient.

Respect: The purpose of this program is to graduate students who respect themselves and others at all times. To respect someone is to appreciate their attributes and to avoid statements or discussions of negative connotation.  

Honor: Honesty, fairness, a source of credit or distinction. It is the purpose of the program to graduate students who demonstrate honor and credibility.

Integrity:  Adherence to moral and ethical principles; soundness of moral character; honesty. It is the purpose of this program to graduate students who demonstrate integrity at all levels.

Excellence and Scholarship: It is the purpose of this program to graduate students who strive toward excellence for the common good and continue to improve on the knowledge and practices available. It is the purpose of this program to graduate students that continue to ask questions, to improve current understanding and practice, and to participate in the development of the profession.

Caring, compassion, and communication: It is the purpose of the program to graduate students who demonstrate an intrinsic compassion toward their patients, community, and colleagues and who communicate effectively accurately, and honestly.

Leadership: It is the purpose of this program to graduate students who demonstrate leadership within their community, profession and personal life. Influence by example is a key component of leadership. Note: You do not have to be in a leadership position to be a leader that influences social change.

Responsibility and accountability (emotional maturity): It is the purpose of the program to graduate students who take responsibility for their own actions, scholastic endeavors and behavior and who hold themselves accountable for such.

Level One Maturity -Basic Emotional Responsibility:   When a person reaches level one of emotional maturity, he or she realizes that he or she can no longer view his or her emotional states as the responsibility of external forces such as people, places, things, forces, fate, and spirits. The person learns to drop expressions from his or her speech that show disownership of feelings and a helpless or victim attitude toward his or her feelings. (FitzMaurice, K. 2002)

Level Two Maturity -Emotional Honesty: Emotional honesty concerns the willingness of the person to know and own his or her own feelings. This is a necessary step to self-understanding and acceptance. The issues of resistance to self-discovery are dealt with at this level. They are related solely to the person's conscious and unconscious fears of dealing directly with the critical voices they hear inside. In the past, the person may have typically lost all interactions with this internal adversary, so their fears are justified. Now, however, the person knows how to choose to feel so that he or she can keep from being destroyed, or the person can choose not to interact with his or her accuser at all. The realization of the old maxim, "To thine own self be true," is the primary goal at this level. (FitzMaurice, K. 2002)